


A Life Unlived

by Nekhs



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 4.3 spoilers, AU, Everyone lives, Fix Fic, Gen, Paternal Affection, Spoilers, Stormblood Spoilers, death mention, primal bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 12:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15143120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekhs/pseuds/Nekhs
Summary: People die. Their loved ones mourn. They move on. That's how it works.Isn't it?





	A Life Unlived

**Author's Note:**

> She deserved so much better ...

Her endless hunger was sated.

Her body lay still, awaiting its funeral preparations.

The viceroy had not been well-loved, but neither could she be forgotten.

Her life was over, and _finally_ , she could rest.

So, why couldn't she just - die?

It wasn't _that_ hard. Men and women died all the time. She'd seen to it, herself, so often she'd lost count.

Their hearts stopped beating, their souls did whatever souls do, but to her knowledge, they didn't _linger_ like this, not even in legends - at least, not if they died fulfilled.

And she had ... hadn't she?

The Warrior's face, rimmed in the halo of their divine light, their words almost taunting her.

_Gosetsu will mourn you._

So what?

People died, their loved ones mourned, and they _moved on_. That was the way of it. He hadn't returned yet, not since he'd finally stopped _bawling_.

**_Look._ **

Heavy footsteps. A door opened, then closed.

Her senses were damnably limited, but who else could it be?

_No, you old fool. Don't make this any harder than it already is._

"Tsuyu," he began, voice rough. "No. If I am to do this, I'll do it properly, or not at all. Yotsuyu."

What was he playing at? Her corpse remained still - _she_ was starting to stink, by now - probably, anyway.

He knew she was dead - what good would this new bout of foolishness serve?

"To say we had our differences, you and I, is to make light of the truth of it. And yet, I have to wonder."

_**Listen.** _

He came to sit beside her, legs folded under him like a proper _Doman_.

"If your family had not been who they are, would you have become who you are? The girl I came to know was _unfailingly_ kind, and even Yugiri could find no lie in that. Is 'Tsuyu' the girl you could have been, unburdened by your past, I wondered?"

He shifted his weight. "Bah, this is foolishness." Cloth brushed against cloth.

The slightest, faintest pressure against her chest. A nightbloom flower ...

"It came to me that there are a good many young people, not unlike yourself, who want only for a home where they can be loved. I mean to find them." He coughed, his breath rattling in his chest. She'd left her mark on the old man, hadn't she? "Oh, I shall tell my lord that it is a grand, spiritual journey, to water their graves with my tears, but it isn't the dead who need my help, now is it?"

Lips pressed against her forehead. "I will not delude myself. You weren't the daughter I had lost. But, for a time, we were happy, you and I. Weren't we?"

_**Night has ever been a time of rest. Of healing. But look - here comes the dawn.** _

Tsuyu's eyes fluttered, her mind clouded with the fog of sleep. She must have slept _forever_ , which made it more than time to get up. She stretched, feeling stiff in all of her joints, and then rubbed the crust from her eyes.

"Gosetsu?" She looked up at him, the lily falling from her chest to land in her lap. "What happened to your hair?"

**Author's Note:**

> ... so why not let her have it?


End file.
